


Ablaze

by mkhhhx



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Gen, Implied Relationships, King/Advisor - Freeform, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-12 10:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20563163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mkhhhx/pseuds/mkhhhx
Summary: People say the king is cruel, his mind set to war.But the king is just a kid still, the throne too big for his bony figure, the crown too heavy on his head.





	Ablaze

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt: The boy who was sitting on the throne of the most powerful nation in this world had golden eyes. But they were far from warm. They were staring ahead with the fury of a thousand fires. A hand rested on his shoulder. 
> 
> Warm. Comforting. Protective.
> 
> Because it was his soft and merciful advisor that kept the boy from setting the entire world on fire.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the fic!

“And what do you know about ruling?” The king would ask, with a voice low, a voice that could have Hoseok jailed and hanged with one brief command.

“I know as much as you, my king.” Hoseok would answer, standing his ground. “And I know decisions shouldn’t be made in anger.”

The court thought he was some kind of crazy, that one advisor who went against the king’s decisions time after time, the one who still had his head on his shoulders due to his pure luck.

And the king would dismiss them all except him, tell them he would “think about it”. And somehow, the kingdom was still standing and in peace the next day.

Hoseok knew he was betting with his life every time he was opposing to his king’s wishes. But he also knew he was the only one who could do it without being taken away by the guards the moment he opened his mouth. And he had promised himself to stand up for the well-being of the kingdom. He has promised to his king too, to always speak up against irrational ideas.

The king was not a bad man, that’s what Hoseok told himself, that’s what he was trying to believe. The king was just a boy sitting on a throne too big for his bony figure, wearing a crown too heavy. The king was a boy who lost his father to wars and has known nothing but cruelty ever since he was born.

His teachers and his instructors, following his late father’s wishes, had done everything to toughen the king up ever since he was a child. Prepared him for an eternity of wars, of slaughter and bloodshed. Of mothers bearing children than would become soldiers, like their fathers and grandfathers before them.

And Hoseok remembers him, remembers when the king was simply “the young prince Changkyun”, holding a wooden sword as big as himself and trembling every time his mentor came closer, close enough to hit him again and again until the king had to learn how to fight back and defend himself.

He never became a fine swordsman, but he became a fine man nonetheless. At twelve he would ride his horse to the nearby towns and villages and speak with the people, filling in his absent father’s shoes. He would preach of their victories, of how they would one day be the biggest, most powerful kingdom in the entire world. He prepared the kids of the days that would follow, the days when they would inevitably ride with him to battle.

Their kingdom did become the most powerful in the known world, but the day Changkyun had to ride to battle never came. As if fate was playing a cruel joke to them, his father was killed at the last battle of his longest campaign. The one who wanted to be his last, and it was. Their army was still victorious, leaving trails of blood and fire on their way back home.

Changkyun was crowned king at age seventeen and with no more kingdoms to conquer. Only some faraway small lands were still standing and they were not worth their time and resources. The new king and his generals knew that.

Hoseok was named advisor the same day Changkyun stepped on the throne for the first time. It wasn’t any fancy ceremony, it wasn’t any official paper either. It was only Changkyun visiting him at his chambers in the middle of the night and informing him of his decision. Hoseok could never say no to Changkyun and now, he could never say no to his king. He could only hold him back from foolish decisions.

Time passed and the kingdom was prospering in ways it has never before. The new lands the old king had conquered produced all kinds of things their people have never seen. From fruits and meats to minerals and gemstones. And the king’s head was set on war once again, because they could conquer the whole world, every single last corner, have everything they could have ever wanted and imagined for them and their people.

Hoseok knew that even after that, the king would still want more. He would send his army even further, build ships and sail to unknown lands, or to their deaths.

“I won’t see you off going to war, my king.” Hoseok was telling him on quiet nights spent in the king’s room over a game of chess, “I can’t bear the thought of you slaughtered like your father.”

“Look at all my father provided for us” Changkyun would say later, laying in bed, his boyish face hardened by the shadows of the fire burning next to them, “your love for me won’t be able to stop me one day.”

And maybe the King was right, maybe Hoseok did put his heart first, maybe he was a little selfish. But he would prevent the day Changkyun left for as long as he could. He would do it, even though he knew that the day would inevitably come. He could see it in his king’s eyes, the lust for more, more power, more land, more bodies piled up one upon the other on faraway lands.

Hoseok grew up listening to the bards singing about the old king, about his black horse and his shining sword, about the villages he set on fire and the fear in his enemies’ eyes right before they died in his hands. But he also grew up reading books, old, dusty and heavy books written way before the old king and his own father were born, books depicting a time their kingdom was a couple dozen towns and the fields in between. And those books talked about times of prosperity and happiness, about the villagers inviting the royals to dance and drink until dawn, about the kings listening to the common folk’s wishes.

Hoseok doesn’t know if those books are real, or they are stories, stories of what their kingdom could have been without promises of war looming above them like clouds before a thunderstorm.

The king didn’t believe in those stories, the king didn’t like books. The king only liked maps, ever expanding to new lands, he liked horses and he liked songs about his father’s achievements and the blood of their enemies. Enemies that did nothing more than defend the lands of their ancestors and their families.

“Do you think I am in the wrong?” The king asks, seated in his throne. It’s early, too early for anyone but them, who haven’t slept at all, to be awake. The throne room is empty except for the two of them, side by side.

Hoseok places his hand on his king’s shoulder and takes a deep breath. The sun is rising behind the wide windows and the birds are chirping at the gardens.

“Marching for months only to feed your pride won’t do any good, my king.” Changkyun doesn’t look at him, he only stares ahead, at the big wooden door, the one that had opened to reveal his father’s lifeless body being carried by his soldiers a few years ago. “You won’t avenge your father and you won’t bring more gold to our kingdom, because we already have as much as we desire and even more. You will get yourself killed.”

“What will they sing for me, Hoseok?” The king asks, “What will they say? About the king who sat the whole day on his throne and slept with his advisor? Is that how I will continue my legacy?”

“You can be the king who brings happiness to his kingdom.” Hoseok cups Changkyun’s cheek to make him look at him, “You can be the king who put an end to wars and built a kingdom of flourishing crops and fat livestock, of merchants traveling safely from place to place and selling their goods, of houses full of laugher from the palace to the furthest borders.”

“Do you really believe I could be that king?” Changkyun looks at him, looks at him with the same piercing look he always had since his father died, cold and hostile.

“I do, my king” Hoseok lies, “Your father was a good king, and you can be too, you can be a good king in another way.”

“The only reason I keep you here, beside me and alive is because I know I would have already been dead if you weren’t the one to stop me every time.” The king taps his fingers on the marble throne. “The people called my father cruel, they call me cruel too.”

“The people have only known wars for the past decades, my king, mothers were waking up every day praying their sons and husbands were still alive, farmers hoped to spend one more day the soldiers wouldn’t take everything from them on their way to some place they didn’t care about. That’s all they’ve known but you can be the one to give them quiet lives.”

“No other kingdom would be foolish enough to attack us now.”

“And yet you won’t be pleased until you burn the last of them down.”

“And yet I won’t be pleased until I burn the last of them down, Hoseok.”

Hoseok’s hand slips off of his king’s shoulder. Their kingdom sees one more day of peace.

Hoseok has always seen something in Changkyun. He has seen him being cruel countless of times. Giving the orders to murder people and murdering people himself. Letting the people of their conquered lands starve and freeze to death at long winters while their own people feasted every night.

He has also seen him smiling to kids, helping mothers and daughters and sisters who had lost their families in the war, has seen him being kind and giving when there was no reason for it.

And so Hoseok believes there’s still some warmth in Changkyun’s heart, some warmth that’s slowly spreading, even after being beaten by wooden swords and after learning that war is the only way. That warm little flame burning inside him is the only thing keeping him from setting everything else on fire and Hoseok is nothing but the voice of it, the voice of those rational thoughts his king keeps hidden deep in his mind.

And every morning they wake up side to side and the kingdom is a little bit more peaceful than it was the day before, Hoseok is sure that this little flame is becoming stronger. Because it’s hard to shed off old habits and Changkyun has only known war as the answer. Hoseok’s mission is only to hold him back, hoping the king will get to taste peace for long enough to get used to it, to like it.

Hoseok knows that someday he might lose the battle, someday he’ll wake up and his king will be on his black horse with his soldiers behind him. It will be the day Hoseok will ride next to him to war.

But until that day they’ll stay there, side to side in the empty throne room, watching the sun go up and listening to the birds chirping. And maybe there will be a morning like this when Changkyun will look at Hoseok and his eyes won’t be cruel and icy cold anymore. The day the king will finally make peace with himself.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to the fest organisers and participants!  
Make sure to check the other works too and give some love!


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